1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an electrode for a fuel cell and a fuel cell employing the same, and more particularly, to an electrode for a fuel cell having improved power generation efficiency by increasing efficiencies of oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) and hydrogen oxidation reaction (HOR) by enlarging the electrochemical surface area of a catalyst, and a fuel cell employing the electrode.
2. Description of the Related Art
In electrochemical systems, electrolytes include a solvent, cations and anions. The anions are often adsorbed to an electrode to decrease surface area of the electrode. The anions adsorbed to the electrode cause problems in fuel cells which usually use Pt as an electrode catalyst.
In particular, since fuel cells employing phosphoric acid as an electrolyte, such as high temperature polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cells (PEMFCs) that operate at 100° C. or a higher temperature and phosphoric acid fuel cells (PAFCs), use a highly concentrated phosphoric acid, phosphate anions of the phosphoric acid are adsorbed to Pt which is a catalyst metal, and thus performance of the fuel cells seriously decreases.
As described above, since surface area of the catalyst for electrochemical reactions may be reduced, a large amount of the expensive Pt catalyst needs to be used in the electrodes. Therefore, costs for manufacturing fuel cells are high and practical use of the fuel cells cannot be facilitated.